Andrea Riccio

This is the first monograph dedicated to Riccio, one of the greatest - and least-known - bronze masters of the Renaissance. The publication focuses on Riccio's autograph works and illustrates more than thirty statuettes and reliefs from each phase of his career, as well as the few bronzes believed to be derived from the master's lost compositions. Accompanying an exhibition at The Frick Collection, New York, the book includes essays on Riccio's life and career, and on the artist and the small bronze as an art form, by leading scholars in the fields of Renaissance sculpture. The catalogue contains detailed entries on each sculpture and is richly illustrated with new photographs of Riccio's bronzes.Current scholarship primarily presents Riccio as an antiquarian whose sculptures satisfied the erudite tastes of a closed circle of Paduan humanist collectors. This publication aims to change these perceptions by presenting bronzes that reveal Riccio to be a sculptor whose creative genius equaled that of Donatello, whose understanding of antiquity rivaled Mantegna's, and whose ability to express human passion could approach Leonardo's own.
The aesthetic impact generated by presenting Riccio's small bronzes together emphasizes that his art, like that of all great Renaissance masters, expressed universal themes that speak to as wide an audience today as they did then.